


The Devil Take the Waltz

by Anonymous



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 13:19:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4139058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's the problematic criminal you crave, and will always return to. AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil Take the Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> If you close your eyes, you could pretend they are whoever you want them to be (but you also won't be able to read). Possibly OOC, meh.

You love her tattoos, you make it known with the steady supply of kisses. Next to her, they pose to you an intricate equation. Her scars are most curious, however. There's a ruptured choppy scar down her supple back, from the left shoulder blade to just above her hip. There's a smattering of little pink nicks along her jaw, resembling the points of a jaggedly broken beer bottle, half-healed scabs on her knuckles and knees. Her hair is abundant and thick, excessively brown, nothing at all like the soft brown of your first lover.

Her hands fit perfectly in yours, as they also fit around the hilt of switchblades, the necks of beer bottles, the trigger of a gun, a baseball bat. She loves you as she would flick her Zippo lighter, impatient, hasty and hot as damnation. The reflection of fluorescents flicker in her eyes, and she looks at you with enough want to fill oceans and hearts. There is a romantic in her; she lets you braid her hair, and recites Keats and Larkin on nights with an alien glow from the bedside lamp, she kisses you and tips you over from love to lust, lust to love.

Her temper is akin to wildfires, violent and aggressive. Her eyes are a cold splash of steeled blue, and there is wariness and aloofness in them when she regards the world, but for you her eyes mellow, and you are granted affection and fondness in the warm way she looks at you.

You lie for her, constantly; it's a full-time job you've learnt to take up since she has been residing in your apartment. Like a domesticated, doting cat, she brings home tokens, favours, and would lay them at your feet if you so wanted.

She has a gift with music, the way she layers and builds and crafts. You would think it a shame that such a talent would go to waste, but her voice as she sings to you late at night, a dying cigarette perched at the corner of her lips, makes you think otherwise. You do not mind being selfish with her like this.

She comes home with fresh blood growing dark on her clothes, skin, sometimes and you know now not to be alarmed, even if she loses consciousness against you. You've picked up first-aid for her; it's a useful skill in everyday life, you reason. Purposeful application.

And other times, she just doesn't return, and you worry and fret, turning over in your bed at the slightest creak of the door, or the telltale jingle of keys. She doesn't return till the next morning, or the morning after that, or months after, with a sheepish yet defiant look as her hands dig into her pockets, or carrying cheap wine.

You _must_ let her in, her eyes flat with relief as you kiss the corner of her lips, and accept the wine. You pour wine for the both of you, and finish the entire bottle by sundown. Then spend the night making love ("If it's against the kitchen counter, does it still count?" she teases, and you groan, "Shut up."), waking up stale and drenched in sweat.

Forgiveness, you think, comes to you easy. You dismiss the lingering traces of horrid perfume that's overwhelming or masculine cologne you _know_ you don't (and never would) own. (Though when you talk casually of a past college hook-up, she snarls, "I'll fuck him out of your system.")

"What do you love most?" you ask drowsily.

Her face is partially obscured by the smoke of her cigarette as she attempts to make smoke rings (unsuccessfully). She arches a brow at the question.

You prompt her with a nudge of your foot to her shin.

"I don't know, cigarettes, motorcycles, my headphones, Sundays, bass, music, waking up next to you, New Orleans, _you_."

She shrugs as she recites the list, and you smile. "And what do you hate most?"

"Ownership, being owned," she replies, flippantly.

And you leave it at that.

Although, at bars in deepening, velvety nights, blood thumping along with the bass, she  presses a guiding hand at the small of your back and proceed to scare away any potential interests with eyes that are filed steel, or the sharp end of a broken pool cue.

A brave man, however, tries to test the waters with a rather charming smile shot over several shoulders away. It's a beautiful thing, to love and be loved. You find yourself smiling in return. The night is starry and lucid, and you are beginning to feel the liquor rush through your system excitedly. He approaches you, and abruptly a glass is being thrown into the poor man's head.

She emerges, smiling (or baring her teeth) her sickly, feral smile, a redeeming figure in black. It's less of possessiveness now than the thrill of a possible fight, though, and she doesn't appear to be backing down (she _never_ backs down from a fight).

The man's ego is hurt, downed by such a puny thing. He recovers, regaining his footing and throwing a clumsy swing at her. She might have dodged it, you honestly can't see through the commotion. But you hear grunts, both hers and his, and if it were appropriate you'd think: wonderful, love (lust?) is wonderful.

And then someone is grabbing you roughly by the shoulders and suddenly you are greeted with sharp cold air, and the suffocating orange spotlight of streetlights on roads. She appears behind you, seizing your waist and claiming you as she kisses you, _fiercely_. Tongue and teeth meet in a hot flush of adrenaline.

Then, as you reach to cup her cheek as she pushes you against a parked car on the sidewalk, you feel a warm wetness that's too thick to be just water.

You sigh against her lips, pulling away.

"You're hurt," you glance at the red on your fingertips and on her hairline, crusting her hair.

"But I've never felt as good, baby," she says breathlessly, eyes too bright and predatory.

And so you take her hand, and find a McDonalds joint, cramming into a cubicle, and thanking God for having the restroom as empty as it was.

"You're mine, little red," she shudders into your hair.

You think: _you're little_ , but she is being _so_ distracting that you cannot afford the breath to even say anything but her name, like something broken.

You loathe to admit that you love the cage you're in.

She tells you she's never been to college, but admits that the thought has crossed her mind. You slide a folder of brochures of colleges you kept in you drawer, across the table. She takes a look at it, and tosses it out the window.

"I don't fucking need it," she growls.

You look at her, resigned, then resume your work. She gets off her chair, hips hitting the side of the table, disrupting you, and lets herself fall onto your laps. Her arms loop around your neck.

Your colleagues warn you of your "delinquent girlfriend", and they address her spitefully, branding your associations with her to be "self-sabotaging". You let them talk as they will. All you know is that she is legal enough to not be addressed as a delinquent any more, and that you still have four hours till the end of your shift.

Don't think you're not made aware of how unhealthy she is for you. But only the good things are ever truly bad for you, and you scoff at your fucked up reasoning.

She comes home smelling as if she had fallen into a brewery, slurring and stumbling, and falls into bed with you. You will tell her to wash the sheets tomorrow, but for now, you accept her into you, even as she drools against your collarbone and her hand rests inappropriately on you.

She is brutal when hurt. But she forgets, that you can be as sharp, as cruel, as damaging, when _you_ are hurt. 

In a heated argument (for the life of you, you cannot remember how it began, maybe that you can't be the mother between the two of you, and how she is insanely hypocritical), she slaps you, and you hold your cheek gingerly, and the world is still for a moment. She looks at you, on the edge of an apology, perhaps, or perhaps not. Apologies are bad for her pride.

You, on your fourth cup of coffee, sleep-deprived and fraying at the edges, return the slap, seeing red and loving the shades of it as you fist her shirt and hit her, again, and again, and again. She, strangely, doesn't resist, and when you come away, your knuckles are split open. You think, detachedly: _fuck, I should have restocked the first-aid kit._

She gazes up at you from the floor, her face a beautiful, bloody mess, and you stare wonderingly at her.  She smiles with some kind of victory, and her teeth are stained red as she holds up her knuckles, croaking, "Now we match."

You take a bath together, running hot water down her face, gently thumbing away the red that's stuck to it. You're silent as you do it, using your fingernails to flake off the stubborn bits, and she's still staring at you, her eyes consuming.

She leans forward to kiss you, softly. It is unusual, especially for her.

She cleans your hands, and you realise it now. You tell her, whilst staring at the reflection of the both of you, naked, in a tub, and thinking it to be somehow warped, "You've made me a madman."

She winks and kisses you again, "Don't go killing anyone. What will I do while you're away serving time?"

"Maybe you could kill someone too," you say quietly, "and then you can serve time with me."

She laughs. "And you'd think that's romantic now, would you?"

You frown at her, and she sobers up, looking, for a smidge of time, almost sad.

"But you're so innocent, so sweet. I don't want that for you, little red."

You say instead, "I think red's my favourite colour."

She grins, and all traces of that vulnerability is gone. She takes a limp strand of your hair between her fingers. "I think it's mine, too."

"I'm sorry," you tell her afterwards, as you lie in bed, tumescent and full of the night.

She blows smoke into your mouth when she kisses you, and you cough, eyes watering involuntarily. She laughs around the cigarette, palm flat against your collarbone. "Never apologise for what you are."

There have been other times when you feel as though you're drowning, as though you are chained, and wherever you go, she will follow, and pin you down so fast before you can even smell the evening air. As though you are branded with a hot iron, and she holds the whip. You're calm and restrained when she comes home bursting through the door, drunk and probably attempting to get you evicted out of your apartment, in one of her frenzied and violent stupors, breaking furniture (it's okay, the furniture was already half-broken anyway) and plates, then leaving.

You snap when she continually prods at you to know the cause of your foul mood thereafter, and that escalates into a full-blown argument with you clocking in late, and her with a black eye and fresh bruises from the anger you've suppressed. You come home later to Chinese takeout waiting for you on the table and you forgive her as she forgives you, kissing your way up the splatter of bruises. This guilt makes you rabid and eager to please, but it's a vicious cycle, you know that.  

She teaches you how to shoot a gun, and you recoil so hard into her on your first try that there are temporary distractions before you actually _do_ learn.

She carves your name on the headboard of your bed, and it _is_ a poorly-done mess; but you appreciate the sentiment when her fingernails fit into the familiar grooves of your carved initials when she tops you. Then she presents you with the switchblade, brand new and oiled, and you think the sharp end reminds you of her eyes.

"You're killing me," you whine, her eyes teasing and flashing, her hands gentle yet purposeful, moving slow.

You feel her smirking at your inner thigh and you swat at her shoulder impatiently, frustrated. "You're so tense."

You pull at her hair and she gasps; that seems to get something going, at least.

It is a liberating feeling, your hands on her waist, your chin digging in her shoulder, on her motorcycle you never knew she had, wild and free, the air smelling of burnt toast and buttered popcorn, plunging recklessly from lane to lane. She requests that you dance underneath an overpass when vehicles are scarce, yellow light like a halo around her head as she takes your hand and claims to know the steps to the Blue Danube. 

She steals a car, gets caught, and you're forced to sleep alone for the first time in a while. You're not used to it; the vacancy next to you is foreign and mocking. You sleep on the sofa instead.

She gives you a call and you're too upset to even speak properly. She lets awkward silence eat up most of the conversation before her credit is up.

You're vaguely aware of how dependent you've grown on her, and you struggle to regain your independence, knowing that this dependence would pollute you faster than anything can. You work overtime, trying not to be overindulgent and excessive in your emotions.

You watch sappy dramas on a dusty television. It always was her who even watches that junk anymore. Waking up takes more effort than it used to, and you sit at the edge of the sofa with your fingers in your hair, head in your hands, feeling buzzed at your fitful sleep. More coffee.

When she returns you can feel her ribs against you as you welcome her into your arms, and you feel as though you can breathe again.

"Look at you," she mumbles into your sleeve as you draw your hands up against her face. "You're a caffeine addict. When did you last sleep?"

You honestly can't recall. You smile into the parting of her hair, coarse with poor treatment. "More recently than you, I can guarantee."

She grunts, then inhales deeply. "Lord, you smell like you haven't bathed."

You start to disentangle yourself, self-conscious, but she pulls you closer, smiling against your white jumper. "I miss it, your scent."

You tug at the hem of her shirt — it's the shirt she was arrested in (that can't be hygienic) — and she says, annoyed, "What — ?"

"Let's take a bath."

She smirks, then allows you to undress her. She gamely hooks her thumbs into the waistband of your sleeping shorts. It's probably the only time you've ever felt as filthy even after the bath.

The cycle repeats, and you fall into routine. You go to sleep fully-dressed sometimes, feeling as though you might have to go down to the station with a fistful of twenties pulled out from under your mattress just in case you need to bail anyone out. There is apprehension in your gut whenever you pick up a call, and you particularly dread midnight knocks on your door, expecting to see blue uniforms and flashes of red and blue, a police badge shoved in your face.  

Your heart can take this abuse, you think, as you lie in the familiar cradle of her body, breathing deeply, or as you sit in between her spread legs, leaning back into her and her fingers weave through your hair, picking out the white strands, murmuring "old lady" into the side of your neck (that's the only time you'd tolerate being called old).

She comes home one day with blood underneath her fingernails and a quivering mouth that usually is set in a hard line. She is unable to hold your gaze without a translucent film distorting her eyes. She seizes you viciously, backing you against the door, kissing you so hard you taste blood (hers and yours). She abandons your lips in search of other bounteous flesh, your neck, your collarbones, nipping and chasing the salt of your skin.

The air reeks of wine and a purple haze has descended into the hot and heavy air. You think you might suffocate.

Then, chest heaving, she sobs, crying monstrous, animal sobs. She clings onto you, and together you descend onto the floor. Whiplashed, you hold her to you, panting, "What's wrong? What's wrong?"

"I've sinned," she cries. "I've sinned so badly. I killed him, red, _I killed him_."

You frown, and she continues, "I didn't mean it this time. I was looking for nothing, and oh Jesus — "

She tears away from you, feet a drunken stumble, and slumps onto the sink, heaving. You struggle to make proper sense of it all, while sitting on the floor and watching her vomit. She can't be touched now, nor do you feel like touching her.

She has all but collapsed onto the sink when you go to her, take her by the shoulders and sit her down on a stool. You wet paper towels and clean her up, and she shuts her eyes and leans into your touch. There is a maternal glow to it.

"I'll never see you again," she whispers.

Then you think: _I hate my life anyway_ , and you start packing up half the apartment into the luggage you haven't used since your father died, and you pile all the mementos and the brochures of tourist destinations and photo albums onto the bed. She studies you, confused (it seems that you're the only one who _can_ perplex her, and that's fine with you), but remains silent.

You pull out a couple of fake IDs and she lifts an eyebrow. You detect a question in her eyes, and you explain, "I was prepared."

She whistles, "I'm impressed."

You curtsy and she laughs, wetly.

She looks at with an overabundance of affection in them; it might even have stifled you. You, in your youth and vigour, may have been flattered previously, but in every sense, it is exhausting. You feel it tug at the edges of your emotional vacuum.

"You're certain?"

You feel yourself smile. "I hate my job. I hate my colleagues. My mom forgets I exist. My sister will be devastated, but she'll survive. Yes, I'm certain, but we're taking my car."

She makes a face. "That car is louder than two fucking cats."

"Well, you just killed someone so I don't think you have a say in what I choose to drive."

She rolls her eyes at you.

"I guess there are benefits of driving that piece of work."

"And what would that be?"

"At least no one will be able to hear you," she is before you, then, moving so rapidly you are unable to react, on her knees and pressing her cheek into the swell of your stomach.

You flush. "Get your priorities straight. We need to leave now."

She grins, and you think: _i'm going to hell, alright._

You foresee red on pavements, on tarmac, on gravel, on the fabric of the car seats, just as the sun is red when it sets.

 


End file.
